2010

This year I gave up my full-time field technician wanderings, and gave in to full-time sessile student life. I summered out west in Colorado, backpacked, rafted and hiked many a summer day away. It was the year I fell in love and had my heart broken in two; the year I closed a bittersweet chapter of my life in Gotham.

It’s the year I got stupid, soft and vulnerable; the year I wanted to hit the next person who told me I was a “strong woman.” It was the year I returned to woodcarving. And decided that if I wanted better abs, I needed to work at it. I started baking and discovered black walnut ice cream in 2010. I also started running seriously – no mere coincidence I’m sure.

I had something to prove to myself this year, namely, that it is possible to teach an old dog like me new tricks. I got through my first semester back in academia after a 13-year hiatus, and did much better than I could have hoped.

2010 is the year I moved back into a house for the first time since ‘97, and bought a bike, my first since a teen. I also decided I deserved a queen-size bed. And found a kindly Malaysian man in the Midwest who sourced for me a granite mortar and pestle, just like the one I used in my mother’s kitchen growing up.

I meshed my rugged outdoorsy side with a softer more feminine side that’s been shelved for a couple of years, when my dresses, skirts, bags and shoes were dusted off storage and back within arms reach. I suited up for Halloween, quite literally, donning a pinstriped business suit for the first time in 3+ years as my disguise of a past life. This year I found new friendships and forged older ones. I started collecting books again, and framing artwork.

Ahhh, the accumulation of material goods. A sign of roots, surely? But perhaps these roots are just as deep as my herb garden… a seasonal passion, a step in mid-air till it’s time to skip on by.

Work

Where else but in school would anyone entrust me with an ant project, and now a waterfowl gig. Last week I couldn’t have picked out a mallard from a wood duck and now I know at least 12 species by sight, and working my way through another half dozen. My new job involves me trying to make a dent in identifying some 20K duck wings in the next couple of months. The ducks are stored in a walk-in freezer where garbage bags upon garbage bags are piled high. And then there’s me frantically sorting, data entering and identifying duck wings, because I have taken this to be a personal challenge of sorts to somehow make a stinkin’ dent! But new bags arrive every week, so the battle hasn’t been in my favor thus far. Ironically, I’m considered a “lab assistant,” which brings to mind images of a sterile lab coat environment. Instead, I’m holed up in a former kennel, downwind from a body farm where pig carcasses ferment, sorting hundreds of envelopes, which I’m sure to check with a quick shake before opening. If it rattles, then open with care, because the shooter waited a tad long before mailing the wing, which now resides together with some frozen maggots, that scatter if you’re not careful.

I’m digging my new job.

Life as an undergraduate, amateur entomologist, home renter & volunteer trapper

I am home alone for about 10 days, so I proceed to lock myself out of the house and break my housemate’s blender. In a single day. I have also indulged in some guilty pleasures, namely frying belacan in my home – my first time since moving to the States – and boy, it was so good! And I still have a week to air out the house and remove all olfactory evidence.

When I’m not reveling in the wonders of having a kitchen again, I spend hours trying to identify hundreds of ants. I dump out vials of ethanol, filled with ants and chunks of peanut butter, and count and rinse the ants off with a harsh squirt of ethanol. Under the dissection scope, I clean up more goop with a metal prod and tweezers, and then the fun begins.

Petiole scale? Check. Spiked propodeum? Check. Acidopore? Nope. 3-club antennal segment? Check. And so it goes until I think I know what I have.

The ant expert came in last week and basically, I found out that I know squat, and I’m going to have to re-identify the samples I’ve completed. But I’ve since had a breakthrough and can now successfully i.d. four genera with no more than a quick glance. I just have three more to master, and then it’s on to the good stuff: trying to identify ants from partially ingested body parts in Texas horned lizard scat.

Just for kicks, once a week I go small mammal trapping, where I caught my first golden mouse and a couple of shrews.

And then, when I’ve run out of all other classroom distractions, I sit my arse down and study. School’s going well … ho-hum.

Fall Semester, Week #1

I have gone through a gamut of emotions this week, starting with wide-eyed terror (assessment test?!), confusion (iClicker thingamajig), annoyance (am I really going to have to fill up all these damn circles for my FULL name on every single Scantron test??), and a mild fit of depression (assessment test…sigh).

There’s also been a fair bit of excitement, mostly focused on developments outside the classroom. The house is looking great and I have a kickass bike! I slowed down my pace, and am running so much better (thank you, Simon). I walked to the farmers market today (and last Saturday), and expect to be mortared-and-pesteled by the morning.

I’ve managed to accumulate a fair bit of stuff just in the last week -- how does that happen? -- desk, dresser, old schoolhouse desk top with missing legs, dismantled church pew, three chairs, two tables, bench, side table, hollowed out stereo, blinds, and a patio swing. [Yay estate/yard sales, flea market and abandoned furniture in condemned building.] Is it inevitable? Every time we stay in one place for any amount of time, do we always end up hoarding and collecting craploads of stuff? And I have projects – things I need to fix up and paint around the house. Unbelievable.

Somebody smack me if I start singing along to Joe Walsh’s “Average, Ordinary Guy.”

Bye, bye Vagabonding Days

It’s only fitting that my field jeans, summer field pants, work boots, and socks are all falling part. Word is out that this is my last season as a full-time field hand. I have my trunk packed, I’m stocked and stoked from CO microbrews, my house keys arrived in the mail, and I will soon give up keys to my storage locker.

It’s time for a more ordinary, mundane, predictable existence. Classes, fixed schedules, part-time job, and life as a student in the Midwest. It’s all vaguely familiar.

I’ve manufactured quite the send off to my wandering days, with a last-minute backpacking trip squeezed in on my final break, and a 3,000-mile roadtrip in my sights. Since I start my journey on Friday, the 13th, I thought it appropriate to christen my drive with an audiobook of Stephen King’s Misery. I hope to tune in while driving through my favorite state of Kansas … quickly, efficiently, and preferably, with no memory of the experience whatsoever.

Inevitably as I wind down, I find myself a little wound up, reflective and nostalgic. The question that’s been plaguing me of late is this: Have I sufficiently engaged in my life in the last 2+ years?

I know I’ve been lucky to have had this time. A time of unfettered travel, a time where I start a new life with a new job at a new place meeting new people for a few months at a time, a couple of times a year. With each field season, I’ve packed up my life and car and relocated, resettled and started anew. I’ve learned that for some people, I am willing to drive thousands of miles for a project even if all the elements are not yet in place and the details are sketchy and I have no where to live.

I have learned that I have lost not an ounce of my intensity when it comes to my work. I’ve seen myself grow professionally, making new connections and strengthening others, while coming a little closer to deciding what I want to be when I decide to grow up

I did take care of myself this summer. Yeah … I took good care of myself this summer. I pushed hard, and worked off a fair amount of angst, anxiety and stress. I lost weight. I gave up sleep. I indulged in ice cream, chocolate and giant cinnamon rolls. I made time for me.

I finally gave myself a rightful place in my own life.

Life Aloft

During a summer spent between 6,000 – 12,000 feet, I learned that:

1. Woodrats and voles die when left in traps through the night
2. It takes twice as long to rehydrate backpacking meals at higher elevations (duh!)
3. Cooler, crisper air attracts gas-guzzling, RV-idling crowds, seeking cooler, crisper air
4. Layering is the way of life
5. Time elongates and stretches in open natural places and distances seem further … key elements for gaining perspective and clearing the mind
6. Allergies do not improve at this altitude
7. I still run like crap (at two months in, I think I’ve worn out the ‘adjusting to the altitude’ excuse)
8. I get sunburned
9. Roadkill consist of marmots, elk and the occasional moose
10. I run my life independently and semi-proficiently, with little outside interference …

… enjoy it, honey, ‘cos it’s all coming to an end

Me & Time

So it occurred to me over the weekend, as I was actively engaged in watching ice melt, that a lot of the underlying stress I am feeling about the upcoming Fall 2010, when … in my head, anyway …I am making this HUGE, drastic change in my life, is based on the notion that I am not at my personal best. And I’ve been trying to take and make the time, albeit not very successfully, to try and sort out a fair amount of baggage and angst from earlier this year, that so threw off me off kilter.

But some things can’t be rushed. Some things are done, when they’re done.

It’s a nice idea to start my next phase in life back in school at the top of my game. But truthfully, how often are we really at our very best? For the most part, we’re shuffling between our best and our worst, hopefully edging ourselves more towards one end of the spectrum over the other.

I’ve had more highs than lows in my life; I’ve been at my best more often than my worst. And if I can maintain that balance, maybe that’s okay for the time being. Until this magical thing called “time” does its thing and everything is alright again.

Time sure likes taking its bloody time though…

Who’s on First?

Julie: “I know you’re worried about your woodrats. I’m more worried about getting mauled by a mountain lion.”

Hmmm… perhaps my priorities are sometimes skewed. Like this morning when I had to save my flea-infested woodrat in the NW corner from a four-foot rattlesnake, which was none to happy with my interference. The feeling was mutual. He was quite a beauty though, at least as much as I could appreciate it after I had a chance to stuff my heart back in place, and calm the thudding in my chest.

Work has always been my #1 priority in life. Then there’s school, which is also up there. Family, friends, and loved ones factor in as well. And more recently, a renewed commitment to edge myself upwards too.

So these days, it’s getting awfully crowded and top-heavy. Each aspect of my life jostles for top billing while I stubbornly refuse to prioritize and try and do it all. It’s no wonder I’m feeling exhausted, worn out and very ready for a break.

I’ve had five hours sleep in the last 48 hours and my campground is overrun with holiday revelers. For once, I am prioritizing one aspect of my life above all others. The next three days are mine: I am bear-canistered and pepper-sprayed.

My time begins in the morning. Good night.

Breakfast of Champions

I have a diet of an undergraduate squirrel, except with good quality Korean ramen. When I wake up – not in the morning – but the second time – quite definitely in the afternoon – I help myself to a large bowl of black walnut ice cream. It’s a Midwestern thing (the flavour that is, not the habit of waking up to a bowl of ice cream).

When I wake up the first time, just pre-dawn, it’s dark, strong, bitter coffee with a dash of milk. And some hurried bites from a granola bar in between Shermans. A good amount of trail mix is consumed on drives between the trailer and study site.

I’m down to one sit-down meal: dinner. I have enough single-serving frozen meals to last me a good two weeks. And I’ve been happily harvesting the bounty of the summer: melons, cherries, nectarines, white peaches, etc.

Copious amounts of tea – Chinese and black tea, sometimes sweetened – is consumed throughout the day, and a cupful when I wake up the third time, just prior to the midnight shift.

So let me rephrase my previous statement: I have a diet of an undergraduate squirrel, with a proclivity for iced tea, fresh fruit and Midwestern desserts. And only good quality Korean ramen.

Sleep-Deprived Mutterings

Our first 10-night trapping run is kicking my ass. 4-5 hours of sleep each morning is starting to catch up. It’s all I can do to keep up with data (never mind data checking), and trapping needs and preparation.

The fact that I doubled my Shermans in the last three days may have something to do with the sheer fatigue I’m battling at the moment; or perhaps it’s the telemetry project I volunteered for that is about to take over my afternoons.

Voles, bleepin’ voles. If they are out there, I will find them, track them down, trap them and vaccinate them. Now it’s entirely possible that they have been plagued out – this is a plague study after all – but I don’t actually know that. So I proceed as if I’m missing some magical formula that will miraculously materialize voles before me. Hence I’m trapping at 6 plots consecutively with 120 Shermans. And no, of course I haven’t stopped trapping my woodrats.

Where are you, my measly, mean-tempered Microtus munchkins?

< Pause >

Flood warning, tornado watch and severe thunderstorms: guess it’s time for a break.

In 14 trapping nights, we’ve caught 60+ individual woodrats. Not too shabby. We have vaccine arriving in a few days, and hopefully, the transponders will begin working too so we can start pit tagging, because trying to read tiny ear tags via headlamp is not advisable for a pair of 30-something-year-old eyes.

Vole trapping has a taken a bit of a back seat but is about to hit center stage pronto. It seems every time I reach some level of comfort, I throw myself neck-deep into something new.

Julie (volunteer) has been a welcome addition (note: she’s also a meat-loving, elk-hunting Texan mother of four, with a surprising fascination with my bone-crunching, cartilage-munching, marrow-sucking eating habits). She has been coping well considering I have been moving traps around on her almost daily. She started working on arrival, giving up the option of taking a day to adjust to the night schedule (bonus point #1), and then bare-handed a grab on a suddenly-awake, recently-anesthetized woodrat two nights ago (bonus point #2).

It *almost* feels like I know what I’m doing.

Stalked by Night

There’s something slightly unnerving about a pair of widely spaced eyes, set high off the ground, following you around at night. But like so many things, it just takes a little getting used to. Ironically I was just listening an old “This American Life” from 2003, with the theme “Cat & Mouse” earlier in the evening, and here I was getting approached from behind by a rather ballsy elk, probably the buck that was following me around two days ago when I opened and baited my plots. It’d run off every time I turned around or move to my next trap. The game continued for about an hour before I suppose I bored it and it moved on. Just one hour…must be losing my touch out here in the boonies. Maybe an hour is equivalent to seven elk years or something.

It’s been a whole five days since my last fatality, so it looks like half-night trapping is here to stay. It hasn’t been too hard a transition, and working with live animals has the tendency to keep my spirits up. Although my chocolate intake hasn’t eased one bit. I just baked a couple of chocolate cakes, been cooking for three days, 200 crunches last night, and am about to head out for a run. It appears I’m still stressing about something, or everything.

My volunteer arrives tomorrow. I wonder what she’ll think about a freezer partially filled with dead critters, about getting stalked at night, about having to chase off the great horned owl that’s messing with traps, about starting work at midnight and wrapping up whenever we get done, about the photo of a ferret over a dead (and tagged!) juvie PD that I have tacked on the fridge. I know what she’ll say … I’ve asked. But just in case she’s being polite, I cooked a stew and baked a cake. And I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’s not vegetarian.

She’s bringing a portable grill. Surely that isn’t for grilled veggies, right? Don’t they throw you out of Texas for being a vegetarian?

It’s time for my run…

Distinguished Living for the Privileged Few

Centrally located on well-used runways, the SRhermans is the latest in modern Microtus living. The sleek metallic interior is spacious, secluded and lavishly appointed with warm wool bedding of the finest quality. A custom-built entrance keeps away undesirables, ensuring that only the most discerning voles will gain access to this lap of luxury. A generous petit four plate from the famed Trailer #2 Bakery awaits, serving up such scrumptious treats as sweet oats, peanut butter and juicy red delicious apples.

There’s nothing else like it! Drop by for an appointment tonight: we open at dusk. Woodrats need not apply.

The Return of Night Owl

The best-laid plans look so good on paper. After a few days of solid overnight trapping, an unexpected fog and misting rain rolled in this morning and I lost two woodrats to hypothermia. It was the best trapping night so far – well over 30 woodrats in 60 traps. But the casualties are driving me to drink.

So the midnight shift it on, as soon as this next storm system passes on by. I’m a little excited actually. I’ve worked nights before spotlighting, but that’s a fair bit more passive than trapping by night. I’m always a bit dismayed that I haven’t had the chance to appreciate the gorgeous night sky since it’s bedtime at 10 PM, and it only gets dark around 9 PM. I wonder what else I’ll see … Coyotes? Bobcats? Anything bigger? Sweet!

Oh, and despite a previous claim on trapping a white-footed mouse, that’s a blatant lie. I have no idea what I caught. There are about a half dozen of so Peromyscus romping around this area. They all look like mice, have large ears, weigh very little, and come in enough color variations to drive me batty. BUT, I’m now positive, absolutely sure, and fervently certain, that a white-footed mouse is not what I caught.

Death by Scruffing

There are small mammals and then, there are small mammals. The smallest juvenile PD I handled was 190 grams. The white-footed mouse that I accidentally killed today while ear tagging was 12.5 grams. Apparently, I scruffed it too hard and snapped its neck. I also resuscitated a juvenile woodrat back to life, and was squirted by breast milk by a lactating female. And then there was the vole that died under anesthesia, which led to my decision not to anesthetize anything smaller than a woodrat. I caught yet another vole, which upon hearing about my new rule, decided to be a pain in my a*** and landed a good solid bite on my right thumb. But the saddest tale for the day was the white-footed mouse, which triggered the Tomahawk trap at the entrance, and practically guillotined itself.

I am really, really, really hoping for an uneventful day of trapping tomorrow.

Life in Transition

Monday: Study, study, study

Tuesday: Took two exams; packed up life; attended last class on nuclear chemistry.

Wednesday: Packed up car; moved queen-sized mattress and box springs down three flight of stairs; drove 8 hours to Kansas; stocked up at Trader's Joe's St. Louis; crashed on Brandon's couch; created data sheets and equipment list while watching Beetlejuice; also discovered River Monsters on Animal Planet.

Thursday: Drove 9 hours to Colorado; caught up with Dean on the project; crashed at Dave and Sam's place; watched the Simpsons and Antiques Roadshow; fell asleep while watching Wild Pacific.

Friday: Spent 8 hours sorting through gear, checking traps, making a check list of items; took a tour of CSU (including necropsy lab); nursed a nagging headache with 6 advils (cause: absolute and total lack of coffee + my stubbornness that the headache would eventually go away even though that has never, ever happened!) Crashed at Dave and Sam’s place and watched Ghostbusters while reading about Mexican woodrats.

Saturday (today): Toured study site; tramped around looking for den sites on rocky ledges and sticks nests among sumac shrubs; tested and stuffed cotton in Sherman traps; tested and wrapped burlap around Tomahawk traps; got stung by a wasp; set up tent – temporary home for next three nights; more than made up for recent caffeine deprivation; bought apples for vole bait and ate some; created a field guide with photos of every damn rodent I’m likely to catch in my traps.

Sunday (tomorrow): Let the trapping begin…

What have I done?

More than a year ago, I swore, scoffed, and vehemently insisted that I would never do what I’ve signed myself up to do, that is, to return to school to get a second degree. And yet here I am registered for 16 credits this Fall. I’ve also signed a lease on a little 2-bedroom house for the academic year, I have a faculty advisor, and have made wild claims to two other professors, claiming I can handle their classes without my pre-requisites in place.

It’ll be time soon enough to put my money where my mouth is – both literally and figuratively.

But until that time, my goals for this summer are simple:

1. take care of myself
2. take care of myself
3. try not to contract plague, tularemia, hantavirus (i.e. take care of myself)

Closing the Curtain

I just wrapped up my winter/spring 2010 field season. That’s my 5th field season in two years, with season #6 starting up in just a couple of weeks.

It’s been a bumpy ride. A few things in my life decided to collide over a span of 4+ months that turned me inside out and knocked me off my center. I’ve finally stopped whining. And beating myself up. I’m starting to uncurl from the tight ball I rolled up in, dust off, swallow hard and straighten my shoulders.

I’ve learned a few things about myself, namely: I’ve gotten soft. I’m more open and more inclined to let people in. My walls are nowhere near as thick as they’ve been. “Now these days are gone, I’m not so self-assured.” And yeah, I’ve needed help. I had to admit to myself that I couldn’t do it on my own.

There is a part of me that is hard to let go. It’s safe, familiar and keeps me from feeling too much. It’s gotten me through some tough trials in life. But it’s also made me hard, harsh and cold. I don’t like that side of me much. It scares me.

The current evolving version of me can be an emotional mess. It’s kinder though, and feels more honest. It cries more easily. It’s self-reflective. It feels.

All the more reason to take better care of myself.

Springing Back

Temperatures have topped 80 degrees and I easily spend 6+ hours a day, 5 days a week, tramping around the woods. I’ve unpacked my summer field pants, skirts, tank tops and flip flops. I’ve pulled off two ticks, seen my first snake (prairie king snake?), and examined a leopard frog up close. For the first time in two years, I stepped back into a yoga studio; I found the Carbondale farmer’s market. I cooed a three-month-old to sleep and let a chocolate Labrador puppy gnaw on my fingers. I consumed a half-pound of bbq rib tips yesterday evening, and about as much chocolate over the last three days. I’ve gone from 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night, to about 6.5 hours. I just completed my last setup week, and I aced my midterms.

A good part of my life is going quite alright.

Taking Chances

So many truisms, social rules and so-called sage advice call for prudence, conservatism, and “doing the proper thing.” It almost feels sometimes as if we function only for the greater good. Such lofty ideals are cold comfort when living a life of many shades of grey; when things are not cut-and-dry; when emotions spill out of their boxes.

In my lowest moments, I am tempted to step back, reign in, erect another wall, deflect, internalized, and to be fine!!

But mostly, what I want is just to be. To be blue when I am, be high when I am, be insecure, unsure of myself, feel foolish, frustrated, upset, confused, and not have to deal with all the guilt that comes with that baggage. To not listen to the voice in my head that goes: quit whining and pull yourself together! At least, not yet.

I like taking chances. But I haven’t always. After graduating from college, I set off to NYC to find a job, then to grow and develop professionally, then to build a career, then to get the most out of my career, then to find gratification in my work, then to find meaning in something outside my work, and finally, to find myself. I knew who I was but I wasn’t sure what I might become, or more specifically, what I’d dare become. So I stopped doing the proper thing, and set out to find what life held in store for me.

I like taking chances: in love, in life, in work, and in small day-to-day occasions. Like walking across a creek on a slippery wet log, or trying to scale down a mossy steep cliff wall only to abandon the attempt when the reality of a 50-foot drop set in.

Every now and again, I run into a brick wall, and it smarts. Every now and again, I have to come back the way I came, backtrack, take an alternative route, rethink, reassess, and occasionally, regret, despair and woefully admit that I don’t have my head screwed on right; that I am capable, even at the grand age of 33+, of acts of incredible stupidity.

And in my better moments, I can laugh at myself, knowing that the journey of self-discovery is a twisted labyrinth, holding many secrets, surprises, and who knows what else.

But I like taking chances. And even with all the dents, knocks, slaps and occasional closed-fist punches, I hope I never lose the chutzpah to keep on taking them.

Life Bits and Bites

I found my first deer shed this week, and it’s a good one. Must be nice to shed parts of you that you don’t care for.

It’s the week of spring break and for once, I care. And for the first time in months, I feel like I can catch a breath. And catch up on a few things in life. Including things I don’t care for.

I actually dared to start a book again, my first for 2010. After a fantastic year of reading in 2009, I came to an almost complete standstill on that front, barely able to keep up with class readings and relevant scientific papers. It’s Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ “Love in the Time of Cholera,” one of the few books that upon picking it up for the first time, I read it cover-to-cover and started it over. It’s been years since and I don’t remember what moved me when I read it before.

I broke one of my rules and started collecting books again. I’ve been breaking a few rules that have served me well in life, and have suffered for it. But heck, at least I haven’t broken the “no skulls until you get furniture” rule. (PD skulls, bison hooves, rattlesnake skins and turtle shells don’t count).

I sometimes think southern Illinois has rubbed off on me more than I’d care to admit. I have my NYC license plates hanging on my wall and now, antlers?! I hope this is about as redneck as I get.

My brother-in-law used to say that after I left NYC, I had been “declassified,” i.e. fallen far, far from the classy lady I once was. I may not be a lady but I’m more woman now than ever before. I guess that’s okay.

Ouch

I might need to keep my fist-waiving activities to a minimum this week. Feeling a little blue, a little bruised and a little broken down. Not broken, mind you, but some patching is in order, with some duct tape of time, self-reflective lube and multi-tool heart-afixing.

Bugger. Life strikes again…

In case you were wondering …

I think I have this whole job and school thing down pat. We’re wrapping up our second session this week, and rapidly approaching our mid-field season waypoint on Friday. Surprisingly, I’m acing my chemistry class, and doing alright in Microbiology (exam results not out yet, so am chewing my fingernails in anticipation).

I have my routine down:

Morning: Work

Early afternoon (one or more of the following activities):
Work, study, homework, download data, run (if temps are above 40)

Late afternoon: Class

Evening (one or more of the following activities):
Study, homework, download data, abs and weights workout

No studying is allowed on Thursday and Friday evenings, and weekends are an all-out brawl of whatever needs to be done. This includes laundry, grocery shopping, swamp rabbit trapping, hiking, occasional movie, cleaning, more studying and homework, and work (as needed).

By the end of the week, I’m usually a little nostalgic for the good ol’ days of just work and data to fill my days. By the start of the week, I’m waving my fist at the sky and grunting “hit me!” And when I suffer a thump (there have been quite a few!), I take off running. Literally. I have a goal of a 5-6 mile loop to run continuously by May.

My life has changed drastically. And yet it’s just a precursor of the life to come. While juggling the now, there’s also a summer field job to confirm, college application and housing for the Fall to finalize, and random bits of life’s debris that has been raining steadily ever since I paused at one spot.

When I actually pause long enough to breath though, I’m not sure I would change a thing. There’s been more ups and downs than I imagined and some unexpectedly low moments in the last few months, but …

I’m doing it. I’m back in school and carving my way steadily towards grad school. I’m living a dream - my dream. What more can I ask for, right?

College Tuition: Paid

Eeek … I’m committed. Even if I’m a commitment phobe.

General Microbiology and General, Organic & Biochemistry. Just saying those words gives me chills. And yes, I have started grinning when talking about going back to school. It’s beginning to feel like another adventure: my 2010 collision course with life.

Which is much preferable to the near head-on collision earlier this week with a UPS truck. I was parked and he was going “90 billion miles per hour” per Regina, volunteer for the day.

Things are going well, real well. I have 63 cameras out in the field, 17 new sites and three resamples for the month of January; 28 private landowners and seven public land sites spread out in six counties.

I’m fully moved in and settled. For the first time in my life, I have a giant queen-sized bed all to myself. And a dresser … my clothes are actually unpacked … and a desk! Well the dresser and desk came with the room, so did the bed actually. And I borrowed the chair, the lamp, the cooler a.k.a. bedside table. I’m paying rent and tuition in addition to monthly car payments. I’m feeling both like a grownup and a college kid again.

I’m been voted the woman of the house by my roommates, who guessed I was older and thought I was 25. Yeah, that didn’t make me feel old at all. But the woman of the house has her young ones recycling and drinking dry red wines. I’m still working on washing dirty dishes within 48 hours of use, and why a diet of ramen and hot dogs is vile.

Hopefully they were only joking when they suggested an “Ask Shantini” box outside my room, where they can ask me questions and advice. They might find out my secret that I’m still very much trying to get this life thing straight and have much to figure out myself.

Root-bound: Musings for a New Year

For eight months now, I’ve had three keys on my keychain: my car keys and two keys to my storage locker in the Bronx. Last week, I added a P.O. Box key and as of this very morning, I have a key to my apartment. “My” is a slight exaggeration. I have my own room, but I’m sharing the flat with two others, one of whom goes by the nickname “da saluki cutie.” Have I mentioned I feel old?

I’m ever so slightly unnerved at having a semi-permanent address again. And I don’t think it’s just because that base is in Illinois. Actually that reminds me of a game I played over the summer, called “states that would be worse to live in than Kansas.” It was my lame attempt at making my Cambridge, MA-raised friend feel better about moving to podunk Kansas for grad school.

Illinois really isn’t half bad. And I can live almost anyway for a field season (even Kansas!), but Illinois for maybe 18 months, even with a summer break?

A friend recently said in passing that my anxiety about staying in one place for very long reflected perhaps a fear of commitment. Now that’s something I’ve heard often enough, though never leveled at me. And I have to admit, I’m more than a little bothered that it might be true.

There is a certain … danger? opportunity? … in finding yourself growing attached enough to a place and its people that you might start searching out reasons to stay just a little longer. And if that were to happen, does that mean I am losing focus on my goals and what I hope to achieve in the crucial couple of years coming up?

Of course, all it takes is a black panther conversation to remind myself that yep, this is most definitely temporary. Even if the temporal aspect of life in one place stretches and constricts in unexpected, rarely anticipated and efficiently chaotic ways.

For the time being, I’ll nurse my fleetingly adopted root-bound potted plant, and play it by ear.